At the ongoing Special Synod of Bishops for Africa in Rome, Dominican Father Emmanuel Ntakarusimana of Burundi made an interesting statement. He said that the most heavily Christian nations in Africa are four countries that have seen the most appalling carnage in the last decade and a half: Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville; Rwanda and Burundi. Rwanda and DRC left millions dead and tens of millions of refugees. Casualties were lowest in the Moslem-dominated area. His conclusion was that the more Christian a nation is the higher are the odds of being slaughtered there. There is, however, only a certain amount of truth in this assessment, and to leave it as it is could open the door to manipulation and misinterpretation.
The four nations mentioned are perhaps the most heavily Catholic, together with Uganda and Angola. Kenya too considers itself a very Christian nation, though with a lower proportion of Catholics. Large parts of Tanzania are predominantly Christian, as is most of Ethiopia, except where it borders Somalia and Kenya.
Besides the “heart of Africa”, the Great Lakes region, where the fighting is, arguably, not mainly ethnic, but more about the international extraction of resources and minerals, the African countries with the worst carnage have been and still are Somalia and Sudan.
Somalia has been unsettled for almost twenty years, and was swamped with weapons by both superpowers during the Cold War, where they fought their proxy wars. The country has one tribe and one language, and one religion: Islam. More Somalis live outside Somalia than inside. Northern Kenya plays host to tens of thousands of Somali refugees in camps; those with more money are developing whole neighbourhoods of Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya. Somali connections are world-wide, if they manage to get out of the country. Somalia is a country no-one knows what to do with, and only the reckless and compassionate dare go there. Somalia is also strategically important, and has oil, but war has not allowed it to be explored.
Sudan has been at war almost since Independence over fifty years ago. First it was North against South, portrayed in the media as an ethnic and religious war between an Islamic and Arab north, and an African, Christian/animist South. The southern part was virtually destroyed during that time, and since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South in 2005, reconstruction has been under way, with professionals from countries such as Kenya and Uganda helping build the infrastructure. But the ethnic/religious divide is only part of the story: the middle of the country – where North and South meet- has huge oil reserves, the main client at present being China.
To the west is Darfur, still an enormous humanitarian tragedy, where Muslim Arab is killing, raping and torturing Muslim African, for reasons of land and race. To the average Sudanese Arab, a Black person is an “abid”, a slave. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in Darfur, often in the most brutal way, while the luckier ones have fled. Besides Darfur, the little heard-of but fertile Nuba Mountains have been a battleground, where African Muslims and mainly Catholic Christians live together. They too have been killed or pushed out of their homes by Arab militia.
Perhaps a more nuanced conclusion would have been: the more natural resources a country has –and Africa is proving to be a huge treasure-house-, the greater likelihood of natural wealth a country has the more will it be turned into a conflict zone, by unscrupulous foreigners using local war-lords to eke out the treasure.
It is true that Christianity has been in most of sub-Saharan Africa for about only one hundred years and it could be argued that it has therefore not “penetrated deep” yet. But it can also be argued that Africans were made more aware of their ethnic differences by colonialism and its “divide-and-rule” policy. Because it is also true that Africa has received Christianity with open arms, and DRC, Sudan and Uganda already have their canonized saints. Very many African Christians take their faith seriously and try to live it to the letter. They therefore cannot understand why the “Christian” nations of the West went to war, especially during the last one hundred years, after so many centuries of Christianity? And why are they fomenting war in the Middle East and Central Asia now?
The themes of Reconciliation, Peace and Justice are prominent in the Synod, but these are not topics alien to Africa. Traditional Africa has its own culture of reconciliation and justice. In Rwanda it is the “gacaca”, the open-air courts attended by suspects, survivors and relatives of victims of the 1994 genocide. Despite its obvious shortcomings and being restricted to Hutu perpetrators, it has helped mete out justice in an emergency situation. In northern Uganda, where a brutal rebellion fed by the abduction of child soldiers has been waging for twenty years, and has now moved out into southern Sudan, DRC and Central African Republic, the Acholi people –who are both perpetrators and victims-, have the “mato oput” (bitter herb), a ritual of reconciliation where offender and offended partake of a bitter herb together. I once asked an Acholi in Gulu, northern Uganda, if Joseph Kony, the rebel leader, were to surrender and return home, would he be welcome? He said: “with his sad eyes, he wouldn’t fit in.” No word of revenge or Western-style justice. In other words, if he wants to return and live with us, as one more and on our terms, he can.
Africans are peace-loving and want to improve their lives through education, better health-care and the necessary stability to raise a family. But, as a Swahili saying goes: When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled badly. The ordinary African is in the cross-fire but not of his own choice.
Martyn Drakard is a freelance writer who lives and works in Uganda and Kenya.
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